GM stock plunge
 

From the description of GM's yesterday's profit warning (following by the stock plunging to a 10-year low):

The rising oil price, which has sent US petrol prices surging to a record $2.15 a gallon, has severely dented sales of gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles, the higher margin market that contributes most to GM's profits.

Sometimes, when you have a bad strategy, it catches up with you.

The original release states were Kalifornia and Arizona.

OK...becasue they were availible here in VA too. I saw one dealer that had and offered them.

Your statement is the first I've ever heard of them being leased outside their target market, as they were built to meet the old CARB mandate of 10% of all vehicles sold to be ZEV.

I know this becasue I saw them there...read the brochures and saw the pricing .............At the dealers while I was waiting on an oil change...at a dealer who did my car every 3,000 miles...which was once a month at least.

That was Saturn of Alexandria .....if any others had it I can't comment....I know this place had them on the lot and had all the information out and availible in the showroom.

The best ZEV is a bike! :D Fuel cells hold the most promise, but they are probably 30-50 years away. Battery's are bad for the environment, they create toxic waste. So if the battery in Prius lasts 80k miles and the car runs to 240k then it would have put 3 battery's in landfill x how many Prius's?

I wouldn't make a blanket statement like this. All batteries are not created equal, and they don't all end up on landfills. Here's what I read. In US, 98% of regular (lead-acid) car batteries are recycled. Haven't seen data for NiMH batteries, but at the current prices, the value of Ni recovered from the battery is about equal to the cost of the recycling process (recovered Ni is used to make stainless steel). The way commodities prices are going, Ni price is only going to go up, so NiMH recycling is likely to become a profitable business (like old tire recycling did). Also note that Ni is not anywhere near as toxic as say cadmium, lead or mercury. Li-ion batteries, which are currently too expensive for use in cars, have no toxic materials in them.

Good point.

Well, 80k miles is a MAJOR under estimation of the Prius battery life. They are warranted for 100K miles, and are already developing a track record of exceeding 200k miles.

Well the Prius hasn't really been around long enough to tell. What was the first year for them? 02 or 03? So an 02 would have been in service for 3 years if you drive 50k a year you might be just coming up on 150k. Knowing Toyota it won't break but they are one very complex car thats for sure.

I don't know about that. It would have more buyers but also now you would have to offer more support. Maybe it wasn't cost effective to do so?

SUVs are cheaper. What is an SUV? A truck with a covered bed and a couple of seats. The engineering is already paid for in the truck or can be shared so the cost would be less. What about the gas heading to the $3 mark? That was last year's preduction too, wasn't it? In any case, prices of things go up all the time. When I bought my piece of property it was worth $X. Today, after things have developed around it, well, $X isn't going to cut it anymore. If I looked at your paystub from 10 years ago and if you are doing the same job, would you take the same money? I know that between 91 and 98, my paycheck for one of my jobs went up by $5. Would I work in 99 or 00 for the same wage I made in 91 even if the jobs were exactly the same? Not a chance. Would you expect the oil worker to do so? Good luck convincing him.